But the slump in crude oil prices to a near seven year low following Friday’s inconclusive Opec meeting pushed shares off their best levels, with Wall Street opening sharply lower as energy companies dropped back. In the UK Royal Dutch Shell and BG fell 4% while BP was down 3%. In the US Chevron and Exxon are currently down around 4%, while France’s Total is nearly 1.5% lower. The closing scores showed:

The FTSE 100 fell 14.77 points or 0.24% to 6223.52 after earlier rising to 6287

Germany’s Dax added 1.25% to 10,886.09, down from its peak of 10.992

France’s Cac closed up 0.88% at 4756.41

Italy’s FTSE MIB edged up 0.07% to 22,037.17

Spain’s Ibex ended down 0.36% at 10,042.4

In Greece, the Athens market rose 0.21% to 608.85

On Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently down 129 points or 0.73%.

As for oil, Brent crude is 4.2% or $1.87 lower at $41.13, its worst level since February 2009.

On that note, it’s time to close up for the evening. Thanks for all your comments, and we’ll be back tomorrow.

The ability of the FTSE 100 to perform is clearly being hindered by tumbling oil prices, and with Brent hitting a new six-year low, the [likelihood] is that this will hold back this market for some time yet. As Shell, BG and BP lead the FTSE losers, the fate of the FTSE is in the hands of the dollar as another Fed fuelled dollar rally could send crude tumbling once more. With OPEC seeming less and less like a cartel and more like an audience with the Saudis, it is likely crude prices could fall further yet.

It is hard to tell what is having a bigger impact on the Dow Jones, the chunky losses for Chevron and ExxonMobil or lingering resentment towards the now almost certain December rate-hike set to appear next week. Given the sharp rise that greeted the (ostensibly) lift-off securing non-farm jobs report last Friday, it is likely that the plunging oil price has created the bigger pressure, even if a bit of dovish drag can’t be completely discounted.

Either way the Dow started the day down by around 100 points, in the process loping some of the more extravagant highs off the European indices.

The price fall, if sustained, will lead to lower inflation in oil-consuming nations through the knock-on effects on petrol, diesel, domestic energy prices and the cost of running businesses.

Lower crude prices may also delay or limit increases in interest rates. The Bank of England has already accepted that inflation – which currently stands at -0.1% – has stayed lower for longer this year than it anticipated.

Analysts believe the current slide in oil prices has come too late to persuade the US Federal Reserve, America’s central bank, to delay an increase in the cost of borrowing later this month, adding that the prospect of the first tightening of policy from the Fed since 2006 was an added factor in crude’s decline.

Larry’s full report is here:

Opec bid to kill off US shale sends oil price down to near seven-year low

Oil prices fell to their lowest in nearly seven years on Monday after OPEC’s meeting ended in disagreement over production cuts and without a reference to its output ceiling, while a stronger dollar made it more expensive to hold crude positions.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) ended its policy meeting on Friday without agreeing to lower production.

For the first time in decades, oil ministers dropped any reference to the group’s output ceiling, highlighting disagreement among members about how to accommodate Iranian barrels once Western sanctions are lifted....

Today’s trading is in sharp contrast to the post-Draghi plunge of last Thursday, and only so much can be attributed to an improved, but still lower than expected, region-wide Sentix investor confidence figure.

No, instead it appears that the ECB president managed to reassure investors at the weekend when he trotted out a fresh riff on his usual ‘whatever it takes’ spiel, stating that ‘there cannot be any limit to how far we are willing to deploy our instruments…to achieve [the central bank’s] mandate’.